Rebirth of England.

Chapter 704 Visit
At this time, Activision Blizzard not only had a series of stand-alone game IPs with excellent reputations, but its online game "World of Warcraft" released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2004 was also one of the most profitable online games in the world.

Even though this online game has been launched for nearly five years, it is still very popular. According to official data from "World of Warcraft", the number of active online players worldwide has exceeded 1300 million, making it a real cash cow.

It is also worth mentioning that the contract between World of Warcraft and its previous agent, 9you, in the Chinese region expired this year, and a new agent, NetEase, was replaced, which did have a certain impact on its operations.

However, Baron knew that when Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the game it valued most among its many game IPs was "Call of Duty". It was also due to the subsequent popularity of the "Chicken Eating" game that this type of game achieved great success, especially among game console players. It can be said that these users' choice of Sony's PS series game consoles or Microsoft's Xbox was also influenced by some of these aspects.

"We have already taken action in advance. By purchasing stocks in the secondary market, we have acquired a portion of Activision Blizzard's shares, and have also made contact with some holding institutions. However, by comparison, directly acquiring Vivendi Group's shares is the fastest way to acquire Activision Blizzard..."

Pat Friedman said on the phone:

"We have now held two rounds of negotiations with them and will continue. Once we can reach this deal, we can directly start the privatization and delisting of the company."

Baron certainly understood that after the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games, including Blizzard Entertainment, Vivendi Group held approximately 61% of Activision Blizzard's shares. In Baron's previous life, Vivendi Group had been continuously reducing its holdings in Activision Blizzard's shares. Finally, when Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the shares they owned in the company were less than 20%.

This was also because Vivendi Group was thinking about selling all of its Activision Blizzard shares at the time, but it was in the midst of a global economic recession following the subprime mortgage crisis, and Vivendi Group's offer for these stocks scared everyone away, so it could only sell them slowly to raise cash.

This actually enabled the Vivendi Group to obtain much higher profits from the sale of Activision Blizzard than from a one-time sale of shares, which was an unexpected blessing.

Now, since Baron has set his eyes on this company, even if the price seems to be slightly higher than Activision Blizzard's current market value, he would rather acquire the company's shares in one go rather than acquiring them piece by piece like squeezing toothpaste.

In fact, before this, Digital Future Investments, a subsidiary of Caesar Fund, also invested in several game companies, two of which were start-ups in London's Tech City.

However, these companies are more like game studios and are not very large in scale.

The main focus is to make some small games similar to "Happy Farm" that are released on Woaw.com.

The acquisition of Activision Blizzard is also Barron's first involvement in a gaming company of this scale. For him, it is more about looking to the future.

……

In September, Defense Minister Kolo and representatives of the Kolo Corps visited England together.

If we say that when the new government of Kolo was first established, the team led by Jammeh Bongo came to visit Britain...

To the British, they were just a delegation from a small and insignificant country in Africa—not even just ordinary British people. Many of the government officials who received them probably didn’t know where Kolo was in Africa…

But now, the situation is completely different.

Although Kolo can only be considered a small country in terms of both area and population.

However, because rich offshore oil fields were discovered there, in addition to bringing huge profits to Colo, as an important fossil energy source, coupled with the growing gap in energy demand in Britain, Colo has received more and more attention.

And considering that Colo, as a member of the Commonwealth, has a good relationship with Britain, their reception standards have also been improved. This time it is obviously a delegation from the Colo military. Come to visit Britain.

The main purpose is to inspect some of the British Navy's ships - Colo is interested in purchasing at least two warships to expand their defense capabilities at sea.

This is not difficult to understand.

If Kolo was just an underdeveloped country in the world in the past, there was no need for them to pay too much attention to the construction of maritime defense. Just a few speedboats would be enough.

But now, due to the need for interests, Kolo has to consider strengthening its defense capabilities at sea.

First of all, it targets the offshore oil fields in Kolo.

As Kolo's major interests, their offshore oil fields need to be protected.

After all, as we all know, there are still a lot of pirates of all sizes in Africa, and there are often reports of their appearances.

In addition, after the discovery of oil resources in the Kolo Sea, it is inevitable that it will face the covetousness of neighboring countries, and it is necessary to strengthen defense capabilities.

In addition, because Kolo has the best port in West Africa, Loti Port, port transit trade is also an important trading method for Kolo, which can bring it huge benefits.

Correspondingly, in the chaotic waters of West Africa, protecting their nearby sea routes is also something that the Colo government needs to focus on.

It is also for these reasons that they need to strengthen their maritime defense capabilities.

This time, the Colo military delegation came to England hoping to inspect some of the British Navy's ships and select suitable ones for purchase.

"The ships of the British Navy are relatively old and very expensive..."

After Barron returned to London, he met one of the members of the Kolo delegation, Errol Brute, the commander of the Kolo Legion. He was promoted by Barron from within the legion after the previous commander retired last year, so he was naturally trustworthy to Barron.

He said somewhat helplessly:

"Of course, the advantage is that we can absorb some retired naval personnel, who will be more likely to receive equipment, but the corresponding personnel salary expenditure will also be higher..."

As the commander of the Kolo Legion, of course he only needs to consider the cost-effectiveness of the equipment and military issues.

But another member of the delegation, Kolo's Minister of Defense, had more to consider...

(End of this chapter)